Blog

The importance of a smart Digital Strategy for small businesses

5 MIN READ

A CIBC study last year found that a large number of Canadian small business owners (74 percent) said their business was not equipped to sell or service online. Of the 26 percent of business owners who do have online operations, 30 percent have seen an increase in sales and 25 percent say they have remained the same compared to pre-COVID-19 levels.

Source: CIBC Poll (CNW Group/CIBC)

In the same study, a majority (81 percent) of Canadian small business owners say COVID-19 has negatively impacted their operations. But optimism for the longer term was strong, with most business owners (76 percent) confident they can rebound after the pandemic. The majority (85 percent) agree the uncertainty of how long COVID-19 measures will last is currently the hardest aspect to manage.

According to Statistics Canada, retail e-commerce sales in Canada was $1.6bn in Feb 2020 before COVID-19 was declared a pandemic. This number sharply grew to $3.9bn in May 2020, just 3 months later. If this statistic is juxtaposed to the CIBC study, it suggests that only 26 percent of small business owners made the move with consumers to the online marketplace. Thus, about 74 percent lost revenue and market-share to their competitors.

Source: Statistic Canada

A Resistant Business Owner is described as one who is waiting for a return to normal, while a Resilient Business Owner is one who adapts to the new normal. We all know good businesses that closed their doors forever and those that benefitted immensely or others that began operations during the pandemic. According to CFIB, about 21% of businesses closed their doors forever last year.

COVID-19 has accelerated the shift to the online marketplace. In 2020, global e-commerce sales growth jumped three years in the first three months of stay-at-home mandates, with a share of overall retail matching 2023 predictions. With consumers now spending more online, having a Digital Strategy is no longer an option but has become a necessity.

So, what is a Digital Strategy? A Digital Strategy looks at a business’s online activities and processes that need to be transformed to attract and provide better services for customers. In the last year, the pandemic has forced businesses to establish some form of digital presence. Businesses have scrambled to figure out how - and even whether - to build a strong digital presence. We watched as talk of a “return to normal” gave way to “a new normal” and finally to, simply, “uncertainty”.

Pre-pandemic, mostly only big businesses had any kind of digital strategy in place, which is why they were able to survive and even thrive during the COVID-19 restrictions. With the accelerated shift of consumers to the online marketplace, small businesses have no choice but to have some form of digital strategy in place. At this point, it can be argued that a bad digital strategy is better than none.

A smart Digital Strategy is one of the few ways small business can take on big business. It levels the playing field for a small business owner. Small businesses perform inventory audit, financial/ tax audit, etc. but hardly if ever, perform a digital audit. A Digital Audit would reveal missing key elements of any business’s Digital Strategy. Click here to request a Digital Audit. Click here to learn the 3 key elements to a smart Digital Strategy.